Category Archives: Berk, Prof. Stephen

Prof. Stephen Berk is Professor of History at Union College in Schenectady, New York, former Chair of the Department of History, Director of the Program in Russian European Studies and Faculty Advisor to the Jewish Student Organization. Berk, who is considered an absolutely superb lecturer and teacher (two college guidebooks mention him as the best teacher at Union College) is the author of many articles on Russian policy in the Middle East and is frequently consulted by newspaper reporters and by television and radio stations including the BBC. Berk is the recipient of the Florence B. Sherwood Chair in History and Culture, has been a consultant to the Wiesenthal Holocaust Center in Los Angeles, and has lectured on the Holocaust throughout the United States and Canada including such distinguished colleges and universities as Princeton, Vanderbilt, The University of Texas at Austin and Williams College. Berk has spoken in countless cities and towns in the United States and Canada and in 1996 Professor Berk received the prestigious Holocaust Memorial Award from the Holocaust Survivors and Friends Education Center. The citation accompanying the award stated: “On the 50th Anniversary of the end of the Nuremberg trials, the Holocaust Memorial Award honors Dr. Berk’s years of dedication to understanding and education as a world-wide lecturer and spellbinding speaker in the lessons of the Holocaust and its meaning for today.

CSP: Berk – Israel and the Middle East, Part 3 of 3: Persia, Iran and the Jews

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In 1948 the State of Israel was created.  The development of a ferocious anti-Semitism in Europe, long standing religious impulses, and the spread of nationalism to large segments of the Jewish population created the political movement known as Zionism.  Two world wars also played an important role in the creation of Israel.  The problems confronting the first Jewish state in two thousand years were huge.  Wars with neighbors, the difficulty of absorbing millions of immigrants and resolving the tensions between religious and secular

Jews were and remain the great issues facing the State of Israel.  Only the presence of gifted leaders and the help of a powerful ally saved the state from destruction.

a) Zionism, A History

b) Three Who Made Israel: Weizmann, Ben Gurion and Begin

c) Persia, Iran and the Jews

CSP: Berk – Zion in America: The American Jewish Experience

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Zion in America: The American Jewish Experience

From the very beginning of Jewish settlement in the New World, Jews understood that America was a very different place.  Vast areas of arable land, the expanding frontier, a plethora of religions and races, and the influence of the Enlightenment created an environment in which Jews thrived. There was a price, however, that Jews had to pay for this unprecedented freedom.  To this day Jews have struggled with the question of how to remain Jewish in a society in which everything is open to them.  Assimilation, not anti-Semitism is the perennial problem confronting the American Jewish community.